Aminaka Wilmont's girls of glass at London Fashion Week AW 2012

Like much of their work, the Aminaka Wilmont AW 2012 show was all about contrast. Draped, soft silhouettes to represent molten glass, and stiffer, more graphic pieces representing hard glass and crystals.

"We had an image of a woman made from glass the from the beginning," explained Marcus Wilmont when we met him backstage following the show. "We got really inspired by a friend of ours who does glasswork...he showed us how glass looks in a molten form and in a solid form, and we tried to build a woman that would emulate that."
The result was a mix of prints that ranged from smoky swirls on draped dresses to shattered, crystallised gold, black and grey on shirts, dresses and leggings.


For the most part, the colour palette was dark, with a lot of greyscale prints with only small flashes of colour. Models had gothic makeup (dark stained lips and smoky eyes) and hair was swept around the forehead with lots of gel to create a hard mock fringe, adding to the dark and sharp feel. Texture-wise, fluid liquid jersey was the fabric of choice for many of the dresses, though there were touches of leather, long knit cardigans and plenty of fur, including one particularly gorgeous slouchy grey coat with leather sleeves.

Colour came towards the end, and did so dramatically in a bright print in a rainbow of colours, seen on short dresses, trousers and even long gowns - a first for the designers. Moulded glass breastplates in black and red were a dramatic catwalk addition that reiterated the overall theme and bought the show to a close.